ERIE, Pa.—Plastics Hall of Famer John Beaumont taught at Penn State Erie for 25 years and is still educating people.
At the recent Beamont Executive Summit in Erie, Beaumont covered a wide range of issues impacting the work force for plastics and other industries. The event was hosted by the Beaumont Family of Cos., which includes four businesses that Beaumont launched over his long career.
Beaumont explained how the U.S. unemployment rate increased only slightly between March 2020—the start of the COVID-19 pandemic—and August 2022, but the later date had a much more significant worker shortage and a greater struggle to find skilled labor.
U.S. work force participation dropped from 63.4 percent to 62.1 percent over that span, taking more than 4 million people out of the market. Stimulus checks and reduced consumer spending also resulted in almost 70 percent of Americans making more in September 2021 than they had the year before, resulting in less of a need to work.
Many baby boomers also decided to retire early during the pandemic, and lack of workers also resulted in less access to child care, causing other workers to decide to stay home. "A lot of people chose to stay at home and learn to live with less," Beaumont said.
The rate of new business startups—including online retail—also increased during the pandemic, meaning more people were working while dropping out of the official work force. Reduced legal immigration because of travel restrictions also reduced the size of the labor pool, as did the deaths of more than 200,000 potential workers from COVID-19.